Tuesday, November 21, 2017

NOXON, Mont. (BP) -- There was a petition circulating to remove violent brawler Jim Webley from town when God intervened and changed not just Webley's life but, years later, the course of a church and a Montana community.

In his early 20s, Webley was working in the gold mines of Nevada, entrenched in a rough lifestyle of drugs and alcohol, and through weekly fighting he had "put some people in the hospital," he told Baptist Press. People just wanted him to leave town.

One Sunday morning, Webley was driving his young daughter Sara to get milkshakes when they passed a little white Baptist church building in the Nevada community.

"I absolutely never went to church down there, but I could feel God pulling me in that direction," Webley recounted. "He was telling me I needed to get into church." Read More

AUSTIN, Texas (BP) -- Should abortionists be allowed to end the life of an unborn baby by pulling it apart, or should they remove it piecemeal only after its heart has stopped beating?

The answer, at least in Texas, depends on the outcome of a five-day trial concluded Nov. 8 over a new state law banning dismemberment abortions. The law, passed in June, requires abortionists to use other methods besides dismemberment -- such as clipping the umbilical cord or injecting digoxin or potassium chloride to stop the baby's heart -- before removing it from its mother's womb. Read More

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (BP) -- The Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware's 182nd annual meeting for a second year focused on unity and prayer with the theme, "United in Prayer, Seeking Christ's Spirit."

Messengers approved a $7,729,121 budget, taking a historic step in voting to increase the Cooperative Program funding allocation from 43.5 percent to 48 percent to the Southern Baptist Convention to fund international and national missions, Southern Baptist seminaries and the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Read More

DECATUR, Ill. (BP) -- The urgent need to get the Gospel to more people was a driving theme of the 111th annual meeting of the Illinois Baptist State Association, with churches challenged to make four "Pioneering Spirit" commitments in the areas of church planting, evangelism, giving and leadership development.

The Pioneering Spirit theme also coincides with Illinois' 200th anniversary to be celebrated in 2018. In keeping with the state's bicentennial, IBSA is asking 200 or more churches to make each of the four commitments. Read More

GREENFIELD, Wis. (BP) -- Minnesota Wisconsin Baptists took a leap forward in their goal of forwarding 50 percent of Cooperative Program receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention, jumping from 22 percent this year to 32 percent next year.

With a theme of "Come to Life," 98 messengers from 40 of the 188 churches in the Minnesota Wisconsin Baptist Convention gathered for the MWBC's 34th annual meeting Oct. 27 28 at the new facilities of Layton Avenue Baptist Church in Greenfield, Wis.

It was in May 2010 that the MWBC Executive Board made the decision to increase the percentage of CP sent to SBC national and international missions and ministry by a half-percent a year until the 50 percent goal is reached. Read More

NASHVILLE (BP) -- A new edition of the Greek New Testament, biblical scholars say, may help pastors and other Bible students gain new insight on the way early manuscripts rendered Scripture.

Released Nov. 15 by Crossway, the Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) aligns with the wording of previous Greek New Testament editions more than 90 percent of the time. But it utilizes unique spellings, book order and methods of indicating paragraph breaks that mirror the earliest available manuscripts and depart from the rendering of other modern editions. Read More

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- Messengers to the Tennessee Baptist Convention's annual meeting overwhelmingly spoke against racism during the Nov. 12-16 sessions of The Summit at First Baptist Church in Henderson.

David Leavell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Millington in West Tennessee, was elected president during the meeting, which drew 993 messengers from 422 churches.

The total did not include eight messengers from First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, as the convention voted overwhelmingly not to seat those from the church, which called a woman as senior pastor earlier this year. See Baptist Press story on Tuesday, Nov. 14 Read More

Ronnie Floyd notes that churches, denominations, ministries and the prayer movement in American cannot be separated from evangelism. "Every Christian needs to pray for others to come to faith in Jesus Christ," he writes. Read More

Formed in 1946 by the Southern Baptist Convention, and supported with Cooperative Program funds, Baptist Press (BP) is a daily (M-F) international news wire service. Operating from a central bureau in Nashville, Tenn., BP works with four partnering bureaus (Richmond, Va.; Atlanta, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Washington, D.C.), as well as with a large network of contributing writers, photographers and editorial providers, to produce BP News.